The
Two Witnesses

"Concerning the two witnesses the prophet
declares further: “These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks
standing before the God of the earth.” “Thy word,” said the psalmist,
“is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Revelation 11:4; Psalm
119:105. The two witnesses represent the Scriptures of the Old and the
New Testament.Both are important testimonies to the origin and perpetuity of
the law of God. Both are witnesses also to the plan of salvation. The types,
sacrifices, and prophecies of the Old Testament point forward to a Saviour to
come. The Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament tell of a Saviour who has
come in the exact manner foretold by type and prophecy. {GC 267.1}

“They shall prophesy a thousand two hundred
and three-score days, clothed in sackcloth.” During the greater part of this
period, God’s witnesses remained in a state of obscurity. The papal power
sought to hide from the people the word of truth, and set before them false
witnesses to contradict its testimony. (See Appendix.)
When the Bible was proscribed by religious and secular authority; when its
testimony was perverted, and every effort made that men and demons could invent
to turn the minds of the people from it; when those who dared proclaim its
sacred truths were hunted, betrayed, tortured, buried in dungeon cells,
martyred for their faith, or compelled to flee to mountain fastnesses, and to
dens and caves of the earth—then the faithful witnesses prophesied in
sackcloth. Yet they continued their testimony throughout the entire period of
1260 years. In the darkest times there were faithful men who loved God’s word
and were jealous for His honor. To these loyal servants were given wisdom,
power, and authority to declare His truth during the whole of this time. {GC
267.2}

“And if any man will hurt them, fire
proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will
hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.” Revelation 11:5. Men cannot with
impunity trample upon the word of God. The meaning of this fearful denunciation
is set forth in the closing chapter of the Revelation: “I testify unto every
man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add
unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this
book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the
holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation
22:18, 19. {GC 268.1}

Such are the warnings which God has given to
guard men against changing in any manner that which He has revealed or
commanded. These solemn denunciations apply to all who
by their influence lead men to regard lightly the law of God. They should cause
those to fear and tremble who flippantly declare it a matter of little
consequence whether we obey God’s law or not. All who exalt their own opinions
above divine revelation, all who would change the plain meaning of Scripture to
suit their own convenience, or for the sake of conforming to the world, are
taking upon themselves a fearful responsibility. The written word, the law of God, will measure
the character of every man and condemn all whom this unerring test shall
declare wanting. {GC 268.2}

“When they shall have finished [are finishing]
their testimony.” The period when the two witnesses were to prophesy clothed in
sackcloth, ended in 1798. As they were approaching the termination of their work in
obscurity, war was to be made upon them by the power represented as “the beast
that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit.” In many of the nations of Europe the
powers that ruled in church and state had for centuries been controlled by
Satan through the medium of the papacy. But here is brought to view a new manifestation
of satanic power. {GC 268.3}

It had been Rome’s policy, under a profession
of reverence for the Bible, to keep it locked up in an unknown tongue and
hidden away from the people. Under her rule the witnesses prophesied “clothed
in sackcloth.” But another power—the beast from the bottomless pit—was to arise
to make open, avowed war upon the word of God. {GC 269.1}

“The great city” in whose streets the
witnesses are slain, and where their dead bodies lie, is “spiritually” Egypt. Of all nations
presented in Bible history, Egypt most boldly denied the existence of the
living God and resisted His commands. No monarch ever ventured upon more open
and highhanded rebellion against the authority of Heaven than did the king of
Egypt. When the message was brought him by Moses, in the name of the Lord,
Pharaoh proudly answered: “Who is Jehovah, that I
should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, and
moreover I will not let Israel go.” Exodus 5:2, A.R.V. This is atheism, and the nation represented by
Egypt would give voice to a similar denial of the claims of the living God and
would manifest a like spirit of unbelief and defiance. “The great
city” is also compared, “spiritually,” to Sodom. The corruption of Sodom in
breaking the law of God was especially manifested in licentiousness. And this
sin was also to be a pre-eminent characteristic of the nation that should
fulfill the specifications of this scripture. {GC 269.2}

According to the words of the prophet, then, a
little before the year 1798 some power of satanic origin and character would
rise to make war upon the Bible. And in the land where the testimony of God’s
two witnesses should thus be silenced, there
would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh and the licentiousness of Sodom. {GC 269.3}

Note: In the end-time literal application of
the 1260 days, the 7 headed, 10 horned beast of Revelation 17, is an atheistic
power consisting of combined Free Masonry, the Jesuits (Originating with
Ignatius Loyola, and other Jews forced to covert during the Spanish
Inquisition), and the Illuminati. End note.

This prophecy has received a most exact and
striking fulfillment in the history of France. During the Revolution, in 1793, “the world for the first time heard an assembly of men, born and educated
in civilization, and assuming the right to govern one of the finest of the
European nations, uplift their united voice to deny the most solemn
truth which man’s soul receives, and renounce unanimously the belief and
worship of a Deity.”—Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon, vol. 1, ch.
17. “France is the only nation in the world concerning which the authentic
record survives, that as a nation she lifted her hand in open rebellion against
the Author of the universe. Plenty of blasphemers, plenty of infidels, there have been, and
still continue to be, in England, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere; but France
stands apart in the world’s history as the single state which, by the decree of
her Legislative Assembly, pronounced that there was no God, and of which the entire population of the
capital, and a vast majority elsewhere, women as well as men, danced and sang
with joy in accepting the announcement.”—Blackwood’s Magazine, November, 1870.
{GC 269.4}

Note: What occurred in France is but a
microcosm of what the end-time antichrist will force upon all peoples over the
entire earth at the end-time. Christians testifying that there is a God will be
persecuted and killed except for the 144,000. End note.

France
presented also the characteristics which especially distinguished Sodom. During the
Revolution there was manifest a state of moral debasement and corruption
similar to that which brought destruction upon the cities of the plain. And the
historian presents together the atheism and the licentiousness of France, as
given in the prophecy: “Intimately connected with these laws affecting
religion, was that which reduced the union of marriage—the most sacred
engagement which human beings can form, and the permanence of which leads most
strongly to the consolidation of society—to the state of a mere civil contract
of a transitory character, which any two persons might engage in and cast loose
at pleasure....If fiends had set themselves to work to discover a mode of most
effectually destroying whatever is venerable, graceful, or permanent in
domestic life, and of obtaining at the same time an assurance that the mischief
which it was their object to create should be perpetuated from one generation
to another, they could not have invented a more effectual plan that the degradation
of marriage.... Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for
the witty things she said, described the republican marriage as ‘the sacrament
of adultery.’”—Scott, vol. 1, ch. 17. {GC 270.1}

“Where also our
Lord was crucified.” This specification of the prophecy was also fulfilled by
France. In no land had the spirit of enmity against Christ been more strikingly
displayed. In no country had the truth encountered more bitter and cruel
opposition. In the persecution which France had visited upon the confessors of
the gospel, she had crucified Christ in the person of His disciples. {GC 271.1}

Note: At the end-time, the antichrist, ruling
from the literal city where Christ was crucified, will renounce the Law of God,
and belief in the God of that Law. He will thus have indignation against the
Covenant, Daniel 11 and will legislate his indignation
against that Law. End note.

Century after century the blood of the saints
had been shed. While the Waldenses laid down their
lives upon the mountains of Piedmont “for the word of God, and for the
testimony of Jesus Christ,” similar witness to the truth had been borne by
their brethren, the Albigenses of France. In the days
of the Reformation its disciples had been put to death with horrible tortures.
King and nobles, highborn women and delicate maidens, the pride and chivalry of
the nation, had feasted their eyes upon the agonies of the martyrs of Jesus.
The brave Huguenots, battling for those rights which the human heart holds most
sacred, had poured out their blood on many a hard-fought field. The Protestants
were counted as outlaws, a price was set upon their heads, and they were hunted
down like wild beasts. {GC 271.2}

Note: All the above will be inflicted on
Christians the world over in the final conflict of The Great Controversy. End
note.

The “Church in the Desert,” the few
descendants of the ancient Christians that still lingered in France in the
eighteenth century,hiding away in the mountains of the south, still cherished the
faith of their fathers. As they ventured to meet by night on mountainside or lonely
moor, they were chased by dragoons and dragged away to lifelong slavery in the
galleys. The purest, the most refined, and the most intelligent of the
French were chained, in horrible torture, amidst robbers and assassins. (See Wylie, b. 22, ch. 6.) Others,
more mercifully dealt with, were shot down in cold blood, as, unarmed and
helpless, they fell upon their knees in prayer.Hundreds of aged men, defenseless
women, and innocent children were left dead upon the earth at their place of
meeting.In traversing the mountainside or the forest, where they had
been accustomed to assemble, it was not unusual to find “at every four paces,
dead bodies dotting the sward, and corpses hanging suspended from the trees.” Their country,
laid waste with the sword, the ax, the fagot, “was converted into one vast,
gloomy wilderness.” “These atrocities were enacted ... in no dark age, but in
the brilliant era of Louis XIV. Science was then cultivated, letters flourished, the divines of the court and of the capital were
learned and eloquent men, and greatly affected the graces of meekness and
charity.”—Ibid., b. 22, ch. 7. {GC 271.3}

But blackest in
the black catalogue of crime, most horrible among the fiendish deeds of all the
dreadful centuries, was the St. Bartholomew Massacre. The
world still recalls with shuddering horror the scenes of that most cowardly and
cruel onslaught. The king of France, urged on by Romish
priests and prelates, lent his sanction to the dreadful work. A bell, tolling
at dead of night, was a signal for the slaughter. Protestants by thousands,
sleeping quietly in their homes, trusting to the plighted honor of their king,
were dragged forth without a warning and murdered in cold blood. {GC 272.1}

As Christ was
the invisible leader of His people from Egyptian bondage, so was Satan the
unseen leader of his subjects in this horrible work of multiplying martyrs. For seven days
the massacre was continued in Paris, the first three with inconceivable fury. And it was not
confined to the city itself, but by special order of the king was extended to
all the provinces and towns where Protestants were found. Neither age nor sex
was respected. Neither the innocent babe nor the man of gray hairs was spared.
Noble and peasant, old and young, mother and child, were cut down together. Throughout
France the butchery continued for two months. Seventy thousand of the very flower of the nation perished. {GC 272.2}

“When the news of the massacre reached Rome,
the exultation among the clergy knew no bounds. The cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the
messenger with a thousand crowns; the cannon of St. Angelo thundered forth a
joyous salute; and bells rang out from every steeple; bonfires turned night
into day; and Gregory XIII, attended by the cardinals and other ecclesiastical
dignitaries, went in long procession to the church of St. Louis, where the
cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te Deum.... A medal was struck to commemorate the
massacre, and in the Vatican may still be seen three frescoes of Vasari,
describing the attack upon the admiral, the king in council plotting the
massacre, and the massacre itself.Gregory sent Charles the Golden Rose; and four
months after the massacre, ... he listened
complacently to the sermon of a French priest, ... who spoke of ‘that day so
full of happiness and joy, when the most holy father received the news, and
went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis.’”—Henry White, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, ch.
14, par. 34. {GC 272.3}

The same master spirit that urged on the St.
Bartholomew Massacre led also in the scenes of the Revolution.Jesus Christ
was declared to be an impostor, and the rallying cry of the French infidels
was, “Crush the Wretch,” meaning Christ. Heaven-daring blasphemy and abominable
wickedness went hand in hand, and the basest of men, the most abandoned
monsters of cruelty and vice, were most highly exalted. In all this, supreme
homage was paid to Satan; while Christ, in His characteristics of truth,
purity, and unselfish love, was crucified. {GC 273.1}

Note: The same hatred of Christ and Christians
is now being fomented by atheistic, Secret Society Jews and their followers. It
is a well know fact that the Free Masons fomented and financed the French
Revolution. They are now in the process of fomenting and financing a world
revolution after the similitude of the French Revolution. End note.

“The beast that ascendeth out of the
bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill
them.” The atheistical power that ruled in France
during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, did
wage such a war against God and His holy word as the world had never witnessed.
The worship of the Deity was abolished by the National Assembly. Bibles were
collected and publicly burned with every possible manifestation of scorn. The
law of God was trampled underfoot. The institutions of the Bible were
abolished. The weekly rest day was set aside, and in its stead every tenth day
was devoted to reveling and blasphemy. Baptism and the Communion were
prohibited. And announcements posted conspicuously over the burial places
declared death to be an eternal sleep. {GC 273.2}

Note: The Revelation 17 beast will again
ascend out of the bottomless pit and make war against all Christians and kill
them except for the 144,000. Are you ready to die for what you believe?
Character necessary to be faithful unto death is not developed overnight! End
note.

The fear of God was said to be so far from the
beginning of wisdom that it was the beginning of folly. All religious worship
was prohibited, except that of liberty and the country. The
“constitutional bishop of Paris was brought forward to play the principal part
in the most impudent and scandalous farce ever acted in the face of a national
representation.... He was brought forward in full procession, to declare to the
Convention that the religion which he had taught so many years was, in every
respect, a piece of priestcraft, which had no
foundation either in history or sacred truth. He disowned, in solemn and explicit terms, the
existence of the Deity to whose worship he had been consecrated, and devoted
himself in future to the homage of liberty, equality, virtue, and morality. He then laid
on the table his episcopal decorations, and received
a fraternal embrace from the president of the Convention. Several apostate
priests followed the example of this prelate.”—Scott, vol. 1, ch. 17. {GC 274.1}

“And they that dwell upon the earth shall
rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because
these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.” Infidel France
had silenced the reproving voice of God’s two witnesses. The word of
truth lay dead in her streets, and those who hated the restrictions and
requirements of God’s law were jubilant. Men publicly defied the King of
heaven. Like the sinners of old, they cried: “How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?” Psalm 73:11. {GC
274.2}

Note: Now multiply the debacle to a world
scale and you will approach the debacle that awaits the Christians who extol
the two witnesses of Scripture, the Old and New Testament and their God. End
note.

With blasphemous boldness almost beyond
belief, one of the priests of the new order said: “God, if You
exist, avenge Your injured name. I bid You defiance!
You remain silent; You dare not launch Your thunders.
Who after this will believe in Your existence?”—Lacretelle, History 11:309; in Sir Archibald Alison,
History of Europe, vol. 1, ch. 10. What an echo is
this of the Pharaoh’s demand: “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice?”
“I know not Jehovah!” {GC 274.3}

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Psalm 14:1. And the Lord declares concerning the perverters of the truth: “Their folly shall be manifest
unto all.” 2 Timothy 3:9. After France had renounced the worship of the living God, “the
high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,” it was only a little time till
she descended to degrading idolatry, by the worship of the Goddess of Reason,
in the person of a profligate woman. And this in the representative assembly of
the nation, and by its highest civil and legislative authorities! Says the
historian: “One of the ceremonies of this insane time stands unrivaled for
absurdity combined with impiety. The doors of the Convention were thrown open
to a band of musicians, preceded by whom, the members of the municipal body
entered in solemn procession, singing a hymn in praise of liberty, and
escorting, as the object of their future worship, a veiled female, whom they termed the
Goddess of Reason. Being brought within the bar, she was unveiled with great form,
and placed on the right of the president, when she was generally recognized as
a dancing girl of the opera.... To this person, as the fittest representative
of that reason whom they worshiped, the National Convention of France rendered
public homage. {GC 275.1}

“This impious and ridiculous mummery had a
certain fashion; and the installation of the Goddess of Reason was renewed and imitated
throughout the nation, in such places where the inhabitants desired to show
themselves equal to all the heights of the Revolution.”—Scott, vol. 1, ch. 17. {GC 275.2}

Said the orator
who introduced the worship of Reason: “Legislators! Fanaticism has
given way to reason. Its bleared eyes could not endure the brilliancy of the
light. This day an immense concourse has assembled beneath those gothic vaults,
which, for the first time, re-echoed the truth. There the French have
celebrated the only true worship,—that of Liberty, that of Reason. There we
have formed wishes for the prosperity of the arms of the Republic. There we have
abandoned inanimate idols for Reason, for that animated image, the masterpiece
of nature.”—M. A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution, vol. 2, pp.
370, 371. {GC 275.3}

Note: The god of forces mentioned in Daniel
11, is the god of nature worshipped by the Secret Societies. It is raw
pantheism, worship of the created rather than the Creator of all! End note.

When the goddess was brought into the
Convention, the orator took her by the hand, and turning to the assembly said:
“Mortals, cease to tremble before the powerless thunders of a God whom your
fears have created. Henceforth acknowledge no divinity but Reason. I offer you its
noblest and purest image; if you must have idols, sacrifice only to such as
this.... Fall before the august Senate of Freedom, oh! Veil
of Reason!” {GC 276.1}

“The goddess, after being embraced by the
president, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted, amid an immense
crowd, to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to take the place of the Deity. There she was
elevated on the high altar, and received the adoration of all present.”—Alison,
vol. 1, ch. 10. {GC 276.2}

This was followed, not long afterward, by the
public burning of the Bible. On one occasion “the Popular Society of the Museum” entered the
hall of the municipality, exclaiming, “Vive la Raison!” and carrying on the top
of a pole the half-burned remains of several books, among others breviaries,
missals, and the Old and New Testaments, which “expiated in a great fire,” said
the president, “all the fooleries which they have made the human race
commit.”—Journal of Paris, 1793, No. 318. Quoted in Buchez-Roux, Collection of Parliamentary History, vol. 30,
pp. 200, 201. {GC 276.3}

It was popery that had begun the work which
atheism was completing. The policy of Rome had wrought out those conditions, social,
political, and religious, that were hurrying France on to ruin. Writers, in
referring to the horrors of the Revolution, say that these excesses are to be
charged upon the throne and the church. (See Appendix.)
In strict justice they are to be charged upon the church. Popery had poisoned
the minds of kings against the Reformation, as an enemy to the crown, an
element of discord that would be fatal to the peace and harmony of the nation.
It was the genius of Rome that by this means inspired the direst cruelty and
the most galling oppression which proceeded from the throne. {GC 276.4}

Note: But it was not popery alone! For history
reveals that the secret societies were totally involved in the debauchery and
their money financed the revolutionaries. They are represented by the 7 headed,
ten horned beast the whore (Rome) sits upon, Revelation 17, which hates the
whore and will finally burn her and Christians, verse 16. Rome is a beast and
she sits upon a beast! End note.

The spirit of liberty went with the Bible.
Wherever the gospel was received, the minds of the people were awakened. They
began to cast off the shackles that had held them bondslaves
of ignorance, vice, and superstition. They began to think and act as men.
Monarchs saw it and trembled for their despotism. {GC 277.1}

Note: Just as the Pharisees trembled for their
despotism when Christ’s gospel of truth cast off the shackles that held the
Jews in bond slavery and ignorance. End note.

Rome was not slow to inflame their jealous
fears. Said the pope to the regent of France in 1525: “This
mania [Protestantism] will not only confound and destroy religion, but all
principalities, nobility, laws, orders, and ranks besides.”—G. de Felice, History of the Protestants of France, b. 1, ch. 2, par. 8. A few years later a papal nuncio warned the
king: “Sire, be not deceived. The Protestants will upset all civil as well as
religious order.... The throne is in as much danger as the altar.... The
introduction of a new religion must necessarily introduce a new government.”—D’Aubigne, History of
the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, b. 2, ch.
36. And
theologians appealed to the prejudices of the people by declaring that the
Protestant doctrine “entices men away to novelties and folly; it robs the king
of the devoted affection of his subjects, and devastates both church and
state.” Thus Rome succeeded in arraying France against the Reformation.
“It was to uphold the throne, preserve the nobles, and maintain the laws, that
the sword of persecution was first unsheathed in France.”—Wylie, b. 13, ch. 4. {GC 277.2}

Little did the rulers of the land foresee the
results of that fateful policy.The teaching of
the Bible would have implanted in the minds and hearts of the people those
principles of justice, temperance, truth, equity, and benevolence which are the
very cornerstone of a nation’s prosperity.“Righteousness exalteth
a nation.” Thereby “the throne is established.” Proverbs
14:34; 16:12.“The work of righteousness shall be peace;”
and the effect, “quietness and assurance forever.” Isaiah 32:17.
He who obeys the divine law will most truly respect and obey the laws of his
country. He who fears God will honor the king in the exercise of all just and
legitimate authority. But unhappy France prohibited the Bible and banned its
disciples. Century after century, men of principle and integrity, men of
intellectual acuteness and moral strength, who had the courage to avow their
convictions and the faith to suffer for the truth—for centuries these men
toiled as slaves in the galleys, perished at the stake, or rotted in dungeon
cells. Thousands upon thousands found safety in flight; and this
continued for two hundred and fifty years after the opening of the Reformation. {GC 277.3}

“Scarcely was there a generation of Frenchmen
during the long period that did not witness the disciples of the gospel fleeing
before the insane fury of the persecutor, and carrying with them the
intelligence, the arts, the industry, the order, in which, as a rule, they
pre-eminently excelled, to enrich the lands in which they found an asylum. And in proportion
as they replenished other countries with these good gifts, did they empty their
own of them. If all that was now driven away had been retained in France; if,
during these three hundred years, the industrial skill of the exiles had been
cultivating her soil; if, during these three hundred years, their artistic bent
had been improving her manufactures; if, during these three hundred years,
their creative genius and analytic power had been enriching her literature and
cultivating her science; if their wisdom had been guiding her councils, their
bravery fighting her battles, their equity framing her laws, and the religion
of the Bible strengthening the intellect and governing the conscience of her
people, what a glory would at this day have encompassed France! What a great,
prosperous, and happy country—a pattern
to the nations—would she have been! {GC 278.1}

“But a blind and inexorable bigotry chased
from her soil every teacher of virtue, every champion of order, every honest
defender of the throne; it said to the men who would have made their country a
‘renown and glory’ in the earth, Choose which you will have, a stake or exile.
At last the ruin of the state was complete; there remained no more conscience
to be proscribed; no more religion to be dragged to the stake; no more
patriotism to be chased into banishment.”—Wylie, b. 13, ch.
20. And the Revolution, with all its horrors, was the dire result. {GC 279.1}

“With the flight of the Huguenots a general decline
settled upon France. Flourishing manufacturing cities fell into decay; fertile
districts returned to their native wildness; intellectual dullness and moral
declension succeeded a period of unwonted progress. Paris became
one vast almshouse, and it is estimated that, at the breaking out of the
Revolution, two hundred thousand paupers claimed charity from the hands of the
king. The Jesuits alone flourished in the decaying nation, and ruled with
dreadful tyranny over churches and schools, the prisons and the galleys.” {GC 279.2}

Note: And it can be proven that the Jesuits
were formed by a Jew, Ignatius Loyola, who were forced
to covert to Catholicism, but then used their status
to infiltrate the Catholic church and they now control it by blackmail because
of the sexual perversity in the church. But this is not to lessen in any way
the debauchery of Catholicism itself. Both (Jewish Jesuits and Gentile
Catholicism) are directly controlled by Satan. End note.

The gospel would have brought to France the solution
of those political and social problems that baffled the skill of her clergy,
her king, and her legislators, and finally plunged the nation into anarchy and
ruin. But under the domination of Rome the people had lost the Saviour’s
blessed lessons of self-sacrifice and unselfish love. They had been led away
from the practice of self-denial for the good of others. The rich had found no
rebuke for their oppression of the poor, the poor no help for their servitude
and degradation. The selfishness of the wealthy and powerful grew more and more
apparent and oppressive. For centuries the greed and profligacy of the noble
resulted in grinding extortion toward the peasant. The rich
wronged the poor, and the poor hated the rich. {GC 279.3}

In many provinces the estates were held by the
nobles, and the laboring classes were only tenants; they were at the mercy of
their landlords and were forced to submit to their exorbitant demands.The burden of
supporting both the church and the state fell upon the middle and lower
classes, who were heavily taxed by the civil
authorities and by the clergy. “The pleasure of the nobles was considered the supreme law; the
farmers and the peasants might starve, for aught their oppressors cared.... The people were
compelled at every turn to consult the exclusive interest of the landlord. The lives of
the agricultural laborers were lives of incessant work and unrelieved misery;
their complaints, if they ever dared to complain, were treated with insolent
contempt. The courts of justice would always listen to a noble as against
a peasant; bribes were notoriously accepted by the judges; and the merest
caprice of the aristocracy had the force of law, by virtue of this system of
universal corruption. Of the taxes wrung from the commonalty, by the secular magnates
on the one hand, and the clergy on the other, not half ever found its way into
the royal or episcopal treasury; the rest was
squandered in profligate self-indulgence. And the men who thus impoverished
their fellow subjects were themselves exempt from taxation, and entitled by law
or custom to all the appointments of the state. The privileged classes numbered
a hundred and fifty thousand, and for their gratification millions were
condemned to hopeless and degrading lives.” (See Appendix.)
{GC 279.4}

Note: Has much really changed?! End note.

The court was given up to luxury and
profligacy. There was little confidence existing between the people and the
rulers.Suspicion fastened upon all the measures of the government as
designing and selfish. For more than half a century before the time of the Revolution
the throne was occupied by Louis XV, who, even in those evil times, was
distinguished as an indolent, frivolous, and sensual monarch. With a depraved
and cruel aristocracy and an impoverished and ignorant lower class, the state
financially embarrassed and the people exasperated, it needed no prophet’s eye
to foresee a terrible impending outbreak. To the warnings of his counselors the king was
accustomed to reply: “Try to make things go on as long as I am likely to live;
after my death it may be as it will.” It was in vain that the necessity of reform
was urged. He saw the evils, but had neither the courage nor the power to meet
them. The doom awaiting France was but too truly pictured in his indolent and
selfish answer, “After me, the deluge!” {GC 280.1}

By working upon the jealousy of the kings and
the ruling classes, Rome had influenced them to keep the people in bondage,
well knowing that the state would thus be weakened, and purposing by this means
to fasten both rulers and people in her thrall. With farsighted policy she perceived that in
order to enslave men effectually, the shackles must be bound upon their souls; that the surest
way to prevent them from escaping their bondage was to render them incapable of
freedom. A thousandfold more terrible than the
physical suffering which resulted from her policy, was the moral degradation. Deprived of the
Bible, and abandoned to the teachings of bigotry and selfishness, the people
were shrouded in ignorance and superstition, and sunken in vice, so that they
were wholly unfitted for self-government. {GC 281.1}

Note: The New World Order would reduce the
masses to that same estate once again! End note.

But the outworking of all this was widely different
from what Rome had purposed. Instead of holding the masses in a blind submission to her
dogmas, her work resulted in making them infidels and revolutionists. Romanism they
despised as priestcraft. They beheld the clergy as a
party to their oppression. The only god they knew was the god of Rome; her
teaching was their only religion. They regarded her greed and cruelty as the
legitimate fruit of the Bible, and they would have none of it. {GC 281.2}

Note: The outworking of the New World Order
would be the same if God did not intervene! But the
officiates of the New World Order have learned nothing from history.
They worship Lucifer and he has learned nothing from his history! End note.

Rome had misrepresented the character of God
and perverted His requirements, and now men rejected both the Bible and its
Author. She had required a blind faith in her dogmas, under the pretended
sanction of the Scriptures. In the reaction, Voltaire and his associates cast
aside God’s word altogether and spread everywhere the poison of infidelity.
Rome had ground down the people under her iron heel; and now the masses,
degraded and brutalized, in their recoil from her tyranny, cast off all
restraint. Enraged at the glittering cheat to which
they had so long paid homage, they rejected truth and falsehood together; and
mistaking license for liberty, the slaves of vice exulted in their imagined
freedom. {GC 281.3}

At the opening of the Revolution, by a
concession of the king, the people were granted a representation exceeding that
of the nobles and the clergy combined. Thus the balance of power was in their
hands; but they were not prepared to use it with wisdom and moderation. Eager
to redress the wrongs they had suffered, they determined to undertake the
reconstruction of society. An outraged populace, whose minds were filled with
bitter and long-treasured memories of wrong, resolved to revolutionize the
state of misery that had grown unbearable and to avenge themselves upon those
whom they regarded as the authors of their sufferings. The oppressed wrought
out the lesson they had learned under tyranny and became the oppressors of
those who had oppressed them. {GC 282.1}

Unhappy France reaped in blood the harvest she
had sown. Terrible were the results of her submission to the controlling power
of Rome. Where France, under the influence of Romanism, had set up the
first stake at the opening of the Reformation, there the Revolution set up its
first guillotine. On the very spot where the first martyrs to the Protestant
faith were burned in the sixteenth century, the first victims were guillotined
in the eighteenth. In repelling the gospel, which would have brought her
healing, France had opened the door to infidelity and ruin. When the restraints
of God’s law were cast aside, it was found that the laws of man were inadequate
to hold in check the powerful tides of human passion; and the nation swept on
to revolt and anarchy. The war against the Bible inaugurated an era which stands in the
world’s history as the Reign of Terror.Peace and happiness were banished from the
homes and hearts of men. No one was secure. He who triumphed today was
suspected, condemned, tomorrow. Violence and lust held undisputed sway. {GC 282.2}

King, clergy, and nobles were compelled to
submit to the atrocities of an excited and maddened people. Their thirst for
vengeance was only stimulated by the execution of the king; and those who had
decreed his death soon followed him to the scaffold. A general
slaughter of all suspected of hostility to the Revolution was determined. The prisons
were crowded, at one time containing more than two hundred thousand captives.
The cities of the kingdom were filled with scenes of horror. One party of
revolutionists was against another party, and France became a vast field for
contending masses, swayed by the fury of their passions.“In Paris one
tumult succeeded another, and the citizens were divided into a medley of
factions, that seemed intent on nothing but mutual extermination.” And to add to
the general misery, the nation became involved in a prolonged and devastating
war with the great powers of Europe. “The country was nearly bankrupt, the
armies were clamoring for arrears of pay, the Parisians were starving, the
provinces were laid waste by brigands, and civilization was almost extinguished
in anarchy and license.” {GC 283.1}

All too well the people had learned the
lessons of cruelty and torture which Rome had so diligently taught. A day of
retribution at last had come. It was not now the disciples of Jesus that were
thrust into dungeons and dragged to the stake. Long ago these had perished or
been driven into exile. Unsparing Rome now felt the deadly power of those whom
she had trained to delight in deeds of blood. “The example of persecution which
the clergy of France had exhibited for so many ages,
was now retorted upon them with signal vigor. The scaffolds ran red with the blood of the
priests. The galleys and the prisons, once crowded with Huguenots, were now
filled with their persecutors. Chained to the bench and toiling at the oar, the
Roman Catholic clergy experienced all those woes which their church had so
freely inflicted on the gentle heretics.”(See Appendix.) {GC
283.2}

“Then came those days when the most barbarous
of all codes was administered by the most barbarous of all tribunals; when no
man could greet his neighbors or say his prayers ... without danger of
committing a capital crime; when spies lurked in every corner; when the
guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when the jails were filled
as close as the holds of a slave ship; when the gutters ran foaming with blood
into the Seine.... While the daily wagonloads of victims were carried to their
doom through the streets of Paris, the proconsuls, whom the sovereign committee
had sent forth to the departments, reveled in an extravagance of cruelty
unknown even in the capital. The knife of the deadly machine rose and fell too
slow for their work of slaughter. Long rows of captives were mowed down with
grapeshot. Holes were made in the bottom of crowded barges. Lyons was turned
into a desert. At Arras even the cruel mercy of a speedy death was denied to
the prisoners. All down the Loire, from Saumur to the sea, great flocks of
crows and kites feasted on naked corpses, twined together in hideous embraces.
No mercy was shown to sex or age. The number of young lads and of girls of seventeen who were murdered by that execrable government, is
to be reckoned by hundreds. Babies torn from the breast were tossed from pike to pike along
the Jacobin ranks.”(See Appendix.) In the short space of
ten years, multitudes of human beings perished. {GC 284.1}

All this was as Satan would have it.This was what
for ages he had been working to secure. His policy is deception from first to
last, and his steadfast purpose is to bring woe and wretchedness upon men, to
deface and defile the workmanship of God, to mar the divine purposes of
benevolence and love, and thus cause grief in heaven. Then by his deceptive
arts he blinds the minds of men, and leads them to throw back the blame of his
work upon God, as if all this misery were the result of the Creator’s plan. In
like manner, when those who have been degraded and brutalized through his cruel
power achieve their freedom, he urges them on to excesses and atrocities. Then
this picture of unbridled license is pointed out by tyrants and oppressors as
an illustration of the results of liberty. {GC 284.2}

When error in one garb has been detected,
Satan only masks it in a different disguise, and multitudes receive it as eagerly
as at the first.When the people found Romanism to be a deception, and he could
not through this agency lead them to transgression of God’s law, he urged them
to regard all religion as a cheat, and the Bible as a fable; and, casting aside
the divine statutes, they gave themselves up to unbridled iniquity. {GC 285.1}

The fatal error which wrought such woe for the
inhabitants of France was the ignoring of this one great truth: that true
freedom lies within the proscriptions of the law of God.“O that thou
hadst hearkened to My commandments! then
had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.”
“There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” “But whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell
safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.” Isaiah 48:18, 22; Proverbs 1:33. {GC 285.2}

Atheists, infidels, and apostates oppose and
denounce God’s law; but the results of their influence prove that the well-being of man is bound up with his obedience of the
divine statutes. Those who will not read the lesson from the book of God are
bidden to read it in the history of nations. {GC 285.3}

When Satan wrought through the Roman Church to
lead men away from obedience, his agency was concealed, and his work was so
disguised that the degradation and misery which resulted were not seen to be
the fruit of transgression. And his power was so far counteracted by the
working of the Spirit of God that his purposes were prevented from reaching
their full fruition. The people did not trace the effect to its cause and
discover the source of their miseries. But in the Revolution the law of God was
openly set aside by the National Council. And in the Reign of Terror which
followed, the working of cause and effect could be seen by all. {GC 285.4}

When France publicly rejected God and set
aside the Bible, wicked men and spirits of darkness exulted in their attainment
of the object so long desired—a kingdom free from the restraints of the law of
God. Because sentence against an evil work was not speedily executed, therefore
the heart of the sons of men was “fully set in them to do evil.” Ecclesiastes
8:11. But the transgression of a just and righteous law must inevitably result
in misery and ruin. Though not visited at once with judgments, the wickedness
of men was nevertheless surely working out their doom. Centuries of apostasy
and crime had been treasuring up wrath against the day of retribution; and when
their iniquity was full, the despisers of God learned too late that it is a
fearful thing to have worn out the divine patience. The restraining Spirit of
God, which imposes a check upon the cruel power of Satan, was in a great
measure removed, and he whose only delight is the wretchedness of men was
permitted to work his will. Those who had chosen the service of rebellion were
left to reap its fruits until the land was filled with crimes too horrible for
pen to trace. From devastated provinces and ruined cities a terrible cry was
heard—a cry of bitterest anguish. France was shaken as if by an earthquake. Religion,
law, social order, the family, the state, and the church—all were smitten down
by the impious hand that had been lifted against the law of God. Truly spoke
the wise man: “The wicked shall fall by his own
wickedness.” “Though a sinner do evil a hundred times,
and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them
that fear God, which fear before Him: but it shall not be well with the
wicked.” Proverbs 11:5; Ecclesiastes 8:12, 13. “They hated knowledge, and did
not choose the fear of the Lord;” “therefore shall they eat of the fruit of
their own way, and be filled with their own devices.” Proverbs 1:29, 31. {GC
286.1}

God’s faithful witnesses, slain by the
blasphemous power that “ascendeth out of the bottomless pit,” were not long to
remain silent. “After three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered
into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which
saw them.” Revelation 11:11. It was in 1793 that the decrees which abolished
the Christian religion and set aside the Bible passed the French Assembly. Three years and
a half later a resolution rescinding these decrees, thus granting toleration to
the Scriptures, was adopted by the same body. The world stood aghast at the enormity of
guilt which had resulted from a rejection of the Sacred Oracles, and men
recognized the necessity of faith in God and His word as the foundation of
virtue and morality. Saith the Lord: “Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed?
and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and
lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy
One of Israel,” Isaiah 37:23. “Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know My hand and My might;
and they shall know that My name is Jehovah.” Jeremiah 16:21, A.R.V. {GC 287.1}

Concerning the two witnesses the prophet
declares further: “And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come
up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld
them.” Revelation 11:12. Since France made war upon God’s two witnesses, they have been
honored as never before. In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was
organized. This was followed by similar organizations, with numerous branches,
upon the continent of Europe. In 1816 the American Bible Society was founded.
When the British Society was formed, the Bible had been printed and circulated
in fifty tongues. It has since been translated into many hundreds of languages
and dialects. (See Appendix.) {GC 287.2}

For the fifty years preceding 1792, little
attention was given to the work of foreign missions. No new societies were
formed, and there were but few churches that made any effort for the spread of
Christianity in heathen lands. But toward the close of the eighteenth century a
great change took place. Men became dissatisfied with the results of
rationalism and realized the necessity of divine revelation and experimental
religion. From this time the work of foreign missions attained an unprecedented
growth. (See Appendix.) {GC 287.3}

The improvements in printing have given an
impetus to the work of circulating the Bible. The increased facilities for
communication between different countries, the breaking down of ancient
barriers of prejudice and national exclusiveness, and the loss of secular power
by the pontiff of Rome have opened the way for the entrance of the word of God.
For some years the Bible has been sold without restraint in the streets of
Rome, and it has now been carried to every part of the habitable globe. {GC
288.1}

The infidel Voltaire once boastingly said: “I
am weary of hearing people repeat that twelve men established the Christian
religion. I will prove that one man may suffice to overthrow it.”Generations
have passed since his death. Millions have joined in the war upon the Bible. But
it is so far from being destroyed, that where there were a hundred in
Voltaire’s time, there are now ten thousand, yes, a hundred thousand copies of
the book of God. In the words of an early Reformer concerning the Christian
church, “The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.” Saith the Lord:
“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” Isaiah 54:17. {GC 288.2}

“The word of our God shall stand forever.”
“All His commandments are sure. They stand fast for ever
and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.” Isaiah
40:8; Psalm 111:7, 8. Whatever is built upon the authority of man will be overthrown;
but that which is founded upon the rock of God’s immutable word shall stand
forever. {GC 288.3}